important things i learned in lisbon

bananas and water are two staples of traveling. (we went to the grocery store every morning, and usually once at night and got bananas and water) cheap and good

portugal loves their sausages. but at least its not huge big legs hanging in the window

apparently portuguese street performers train their dogs to collect the money. i was super impressed.




i kind of fell in love with this underwear, and wish i was a boy so i could wear it.





we ran into this random, very trashed, public park while wandering around. i wanted to keep it forever.

where the grafitti is stenciled on

so i have probably mentioned that my roommate emma is gone basically every weekend. and there are a lot of people in the program here that are travling constantly. but i have no such plans. there are a couple of problems with everyone being gone while i am still here. perhaps the most important is that my meals alone with juaq are super awkward. we basically end up watching spanish who wants to be a millionaire and eating as quickly as possible.

so, when josh asked me if i wanted to go to lisbon, portugal for a weekend with him and kevin i was all for it. not because i really wanted to go to portugal. quite honestly, i didnt know a single thing about lisbon other than the fact that it was in portugal. what i did know was that going meant one weekend without awkward dinners of mushy vegetables and eggs. we booked our tickets a week before the flight, and went without knowing a single thing about the city.

but, really, not knowing was the best thing that could have happened.

we got to the airport having no idea how to get to our hostel. In fact, josh had even forgotten to write down the address, so all we knew was the name of the hostel and that it was supposedly in the main square downtown, accross from a theater. thankfully, the airport information man was extremely nice and figured everything out for us, and got us on a bus that dropped us off directly in front of our hostel!

we had a three bed romm in the hostel, with our own bathroom. other than the bathroom door having some trouble closing, it was a pretty nice set up.

after claiming beds, checking out the view from our window, and so on, we went on to get some dinner. the guy at the front desk gave us a map and showed us where mcdonalds and hard rock cafe were. but we gave him a mean look, so then he showed us where a restaurant with good grilled chicken was. apparently portugal is known for their grilled meats. we left, and the boys led the way to the restaurant. and even though the guy at the desk gave us super clear directions, the boys decided following the map was better, and got us lost. finally we decided to just stop at a random restaurant, and it was the right one!

we all ordered grilled chicken, and while we were waiting they put out some bread and cheese and this little ceramic container that seemed to have olive oil in it for brushing onto the bread. mm, olive oil bread. i soaked my bread with it, took a big excited bite...it wasnt olive oil. it hurt. my mouth was burning, and we hadnt even gotten water yet. we decided that it was mustard seed oil, and i got a new roll. i then proceeded to eat the biggest plate of meat i have ever seen, and ordering a mystery dessert (which turned out to be pineapple and whipped cream)

after dinner we tried to go to barria alta, where we had heard all the good night life was, but got lost again. instead of barria alta we ended up just walking up this huge hill on a super sketchy road with lots of strip clubs. I have never seen such a lack of pedestrian women on the streets. i convinced the boys that we were going back downtown, and ended up going to a small bar near our hostel and spent the night listening to top eighty hits from the 90's. (i have learned that all of the iberian peninsula listens to bad american music, and especially enjoy the eighties and nineties)

even the cafe we went to the next morning for breakfast (after eating an entire bag of pan con tomate tostas-aka, best pizza chips ever) was playing VH1 i love the eighties. ridiculous.

we woke up the next morning, and still have very little idea of what there was to see in the city. so we walked. we walked up random hills, down little alleyways. we ran into a castle (caste of sao jorge). apperently the castle foundations were built in the second century BC, or something crazy like that. but we didnt go inside becuase it was really expensive. at one point we recognized how awesome the graffiti was all over the city and had a photo shoot. seriously, the graffiti was amazing. other than the cool freehand stuff there was also a ton of clearly stenciled designs all over the place. the graffiti artists are super prepared.

we also tried to walk to this place in lisbon called belem, which is where another old castle and architecture and some war memorials...aka, tourist central. but then we realized half way there that we had been walking for over an hour, and it was still so far away. so we went to cafe and chilled. after a cheap dinner of sandwiches, and some rest time in the hostel, we decided to try to get back up to barria alta. but first we had to visit the beautiful bartended from the bar we had been to last night. this time there were live musicians singing bad music from the nineties. it was awesome. haha. but josh, being super lame, was falling asleep in his chair. so we had to get him moving and went on our way up the hill.

and i must admit, i wasnt sure it would happen. i thought we were surely going to get lost in the red light district again, and be followed by creepy men again down the hill, and walk by drug deals on the street. and we kind of did get lost. and kevin and i looked at josh and told him "we are in exactly the same place as we were yesterday!". but we kept walking, and saw some other people walking further up the hill, so we kept going. and the streets were silent. so not party central. up the hill, more and more. turn the corner....biggest block party in the world. block after block the streets were crowded with people drinking and eating these amazing looking toasted sandwiches. and people with their guitars and accordians playing together. it was amazing. the boys each got a sandwich and stood on the side of the street talking politics, while i talked to some locals. (we also saw some other people from our program in barcelona, but they were annoying so i am going to skip that part of the night)

around 3AM, i am talking to this group of portuguese guys about sports (haha, oh boy), and they are about to go to a party somewhere else, and ask if i want to go. i do not, so i tell them that i have to stay with my friends, and point to the political debate. they say, oh thats fine, just tell your friends they are coming. so i go over to josh and kevin, and we realize we dont know how to be polite in this situation, so we runaway. literally, we ran through the crowd, down the hill, until we knew they couldnt see us anymore. and returned to our hostel, a locked hostel! there was supposed to be someone at the desk to buzz us in at all hours of the morning, but nobody was letting us in. another group of girls from the hostel even showed up and wanted in too. i seriously thought we were going to be spending the night on this bench. but eventually the group of us was loud enough, apparently, and the person at the desk woke up and let us in. a hostel bed has never felt so wonderful.

the next day we figured out the bus system to get us to belem, and spent the day laying in the sun by the water next to beautiful towers and castles.

when i stop caring about pickpockets

so my roommate likes to leave me alone for long periods of time with our senora, or juaq as we like to call her. juaq is not so bad, but i don't have a strong desire for many long deep conversations with her. so weekends when emma is gone, and my friends are all in other countries, i spend a lot of time wandering around the city, no idea where i'm going and getting lost. considering my directional talents this isn't so hard. and so the other weekend i was feeling sorry for myself, gelato in hand as a feel better gift to myself, walking around barri gotic. little windy streets with a complete lack of signs. and i realized a couple of things.

if pickpockets can get into my double zipper, twenty pocket, close to my body at all times purse and manage to get to the bottom of the pit to where my money and anything else valuable would be, good for them.

street performers are beautiful. i wish i could be a street performer and inspire spontaneous gathering of circular crowds. i especially like the ones that perform in crazy niches and tiny streets instead of a big plaza. and the old men that play in suits and ties. they are great too.

i think gelato unites the entire world. nobody would refuse a gelato date.

street markets are the best sorts of surprises. i would turn a corner, and there would be a little tent with cheeses and honey and chocolate and antiques and artists and jewelry and funny old men selling everything to you. i think i could just sit in the middle of a street market for an entire weekend.

no matter how much girls complain about all the spanish men making cat calls or kissing noises towards them, and no matter how much i would like to take the women's rights position, and no matter how much i don't want to admit it...i am flattered everytime the men on the street make their rude ridiculous comments. it will never get old. and even if they do it to every woman that walks by, i am just going to pretend that it is really all for me. and that i am just that hot.

the scent of strawberry lipgloss will always remind me of carnaval

sometimes there are holidays that nobody really likes. flag day, for example. not to say that flag day is not a good and valient or worthy celebration of our flag and whatever. but seriously, nobody really celebrates it or even knows actually what the point of it is. and it's even worse than president's day. at least we got that day off of school through highschool. i even got lincoln's birthday off in illinois. and casimir pulaski day! i got that off in grade school, and i don't even know who casimir pulaski is. those are all way better holidays than flag day, which is in the middle of the summer and nobody pays attention to it.

ok, so thinking of flag day, i would like to say that carnaval is pretty much the exact opposite of that. its basically impossible to not like carnaval. ok, so maybe you don't like dressing up, you don't have to! other than that there is nothing to not like, and even that is a stretch. i mean, i love dressing up as well as holidays where everyone else get dressed up in ridiculous things. its like the whole world is 4 again. who doesn't want to try out being four again?

recap of the night: emma and i get out of class on tuesday at 7pm, go to corte ingles for some quick groceries, and then have to go back to the apartment so that we can drop off our school stuff, and so that i can pick up my mom bag. trail mix, veggies, clementines, emergency toilet paper, tide stick, water, gum, money, camera, phone, pen, hand sanitizer, chapstick, swiss army knife. i was set. return to plaza catalunya by 8 to meet jeanna and catch the train to sitges. we were literally running the entire time. i was sweating by the time we got on the train. but we had to catch the eight oclock train because the parade in sitges started at 8:30, and we were not about to miss it.

on the train there was a group of people dressed up in costumes drinking boxed wine straight from the box and rolling slash smoking joints without even trying to hide it. watching a rabbit smoke is definetly an interesting experience. we knew which was our stop when they were getting off.

sitges is a town on the beach outside of barcelona that is known for it´s large LGBT population and famous (or infamous) for its weekend of nonstop carnaval celebrations.

i learned this all when we arrived in sitges and meet jeanna´s spaniard boy bruno and his friend oriel (i have no idea how to spell his name). and proceed to the parade. tuesday was the last night of carnaval, and so the celebration had already been going on for four days and nights. it was a city of confetti. the streets were multi colored and filled with cross dressers, masks, wigs, eyeshadow, and girls pretending that underwear is a costume. we made our way towards the parade, but the boys were already talking about food. what kind of spaniards are these? dinner at 8:30?! how can they be hungry so early? and how do they not want to see the parade?

and so they inform us that the parade goes until 1 in the morning. seriously. they weren´t even joking. so we went to find a mexican restaurant so i could get the nachos that i have been craving basically since i arrived. on our way there emma discovered a new use for my swiss army knife (mom bag use number 1). but we had some trouble, and had to get some help from the spaniards. and so we then found the restaurant, ate some nachos (but they weren´t as good as laura´s, so it wasn't quite perfect, but practically) and had discussions with the spaniards about slang and learned some new vocab. somehow josh managed to stumble across the restaurant and was miraculously able to meet us as had been discussed earlier. needless to say, we had to get a second round of nachos. then, en un ataque de la risa, jeanna spilled sangria all over her jeans. celebrate the tide stick. (mom bag use number 2).

after dinner the night mostly consisted of lots of random moments and ridiculous stories. but here is a general outline of events. watch the parade by the beach, go to the beach, dance on the beach, walk around, oriel and bruno leave, find a cafe to chill, catch the 5AM train back to barcelona.

ok, and now for some random moments and contemplations.

1)when we were at the parade i couldn´t see so josh decided to give me a surprise piggy back ride. it was quite scary, but i got some good pictures.

2)at the parade i tried to get kisses on the cheeks from the dancers in front of the floats, but josh definetly got more kisses than me. and bruno would have gotten even more if he hadn´t disappeared for extreme amounts of time.

3)all of the bars and cafes were open at all moments of the day. even when we left at 5 in the morning everything was open, and there were crowds outside of every bar dancing in the streets.

4) at the parade we met some girls dressed as bowling pins, and the guy that was dressed as a bowling ball tried to bowl the americans over (aka, us)

5)we met a cross-dresser on the beach and emma had a conversation in spanish about his fake breasts. what are they made out of, how are they attached to the outfit, do you want to feel them? they are very realistic. he had very nice makeup. i was impressed. when he left he gave us all dos besos. he was wearing strawberry flavored lip gloss, so my face was sticky and smelled like strawberry smackers the rest of the night.

6) there was an amazing amount of peeing into the ocean happening. seriously a line of men standing at the waves. and then josh decided to take his shoes off and step ino the water. it was an interesting choice.

7) we played soccer with a group of guys for a bit, and then this new girl come and showed us all up. what a show off. when we left one guy, dressed like marilyn monroe, tried to explain that in spain they don´t do dos besos, pero solamente un beso.

8) we ate all of the snacks that were in my bag, including a pretzel i didnt even know was there, on the beach after dancing in about 3 minutes. it was impressive (mom bag number 3)

9) this guy was really jealous of our photo shoot in the street, and just had to be in a photo

10) we went into a burgerking (my first fast food experience in spain) but had to leave quickly because the floor was covered in unidentifiable substances.

11) jeanna got a red card

12) josh picked up a random girl on the street. she kept complaining about how everyone in the streets was staring at her and making comments. what you can´t see in the picture is that she was wearing lacy black lingerie as her costume.

13) by the end of the night there was so much confetti on the ground that it looked like it had snowed.



14)on the train home josh stole the only open seat (what a gentleman) and fell asleep. emma and jeanna fell asleep on the floor next to him. but alex and i met po the telletubby. po informed us that he was going to be the next US president and wondered if we would vote for him.




15)we got to barcelona just in time for the metro to open for the morning. needless to say, people were very tired, josh had lost his hat, and my mom bag was nearly empty having eaten the food, used the toilet paper, finished off the hand sanitizer, chewed the gum, and lost the pen.





home to the apartment on balmes, my bed, and sleeping through spanish class.

nights that begin at the vending machine can't be too bad

there is a vending maching in the plaza catalunya metro stop. it is no regular vending machine. it is the best vending machine. its literally called "supermercado rapido" (fast supermarket), and has everything. fish soup, diapers, entire boxes of cereal and cookies, gallons of milk. everything. and everytime i pass by it i want to buy something and have to show some extreme restraint to keep from spending all my money.

and so i never got to use it, until one beautiful night when emma, ali, jeanna and i were on our way to a gathering and realized we had promised to bring soda. all the supermarkets closed? no problem! and i finally got to use the vending machine, and it was as good as i had always hoped.

so we made it to the apartment, soda in hand. we had planned on going to "el bosque", which is this enchanted forest theme bar. there are swings and trees and it is supposed to be lovely. but it closes early, and we didnt make it in time. so we went to another random bar and sat outside. at one point i go inside to get a drink, and as i return walking towards our table i see a bottle spinning on its side. yes, they were really playing spin the bottle.

and i thought (ignoring the whole regression factor of the situation): wow, the spanish pda tendency must really be rubbing off on everyone. but don't worry. the game was g-rated, kiss on the cheek style. no making out in the streets for us non-spaniards.

life in subtitles

ok, so i won tickets to go to the opera at the liceau, which is this amazingly beautiful opera house here in barcelona. it is supposed to be considered among the best opera houses in europe, not that i would really know the difference. but there were some problems. i don't have opera worthy clothes with me, i don't speak italian, and it was a 6 hour long opera! but in the end it turned out perfect. the ticket was for a wednesday night, so nobody was all that dressed up. we had amazing seats (in the box seats on the side, very close to the stage), and i sat next to a russian guy that was in barcelona for a cellphone conference that took over the city for a week. seriously, it took over the city. the russian guy thought we were funny, and laughed at us during intermission when we were talking. i probably shouldn't assume people don't speak spanish anymore.

anyway, a few minutes into the opera i discovered that theatre had subtitle machines built into the seats! they were beautiful, and once i figured that out, and could actually understand what was going on, i fell in love. the show was amazing. they had some really bizarre entreacts. once was completely silent slapstick skit. suddenly all the actors were in clothes from the 1950's and doing all this ridiculous physical acting. and then at the end of intermission they did this whole piece with the house lights on and the actors walking through the audience. they didnt even warn the audience that everything was beginning. they had camera's set up in the lobby and other places in the theatre, and projected the images onto the stage. i didnt completely understand what was going on, as the subtitles were not yet turned on, but i was still impressed. i didnt want to, but we ended up leaving before the show ended so that we could catch the last metro. i had to wikipedia the ending.

sometimes bigger is better

and sometimes when you are late, you are really early. at least here in spain. the other weekend my friend ali and i decided to go see some castellers (human towers!). but, of course, we were late! and i was all nervous, with that sad feeling in my stomach. and ali was worried we would miss it all. but it turns out that an hour late is really an hour early. so not only did we get to see all of the castellers but also los gigantes, which are these crazy huge puppet things. really, they were intense. haha, they are like 12 feet tall, and people were inside of them making them move. if i understood right (which is usually unlikely) they were all supposed to be "traditional" catalan characters. but they have clearly been working on updating, cause there was one that was a girl in jeans holding a metro pass. there was also this weird bird one with breasts. i'm assuming it has some sort of regional signifigance but i can't figure out what exactly that would be, and it kind of freaked me out. and they danced! they had entire routines with partners and circles and music. they would all be standing still around the edges of the plaza, music would start, and all of sudden they would all be moving and dancing around in the crowd. i really thought they were going to hit someone. but there was some serious dexterity going on.

and then they all disappeared down a long winding road. i kind of wanted to follow them and find out where puppets go when they aren't dancing in the middle of plaza san jaume. but i was not about to miss the castellers.

ok, so you hear the word human castles and you think of cheerleaders and pyramids. and i would just like to say that those pyramids are nothing, in fact i might even say that they are boring. actually, they are boring in all sense of the word. castellers are crazy. first they came out and made towers of just one person stacked, standing on the shoulders of the another, 4 people high. and then they walk around the square stacked like this. so thats ridiculous to begin with. but it´s nothing. they then proceed to make huge castles, with layers, and several people thick. some of the tallest ones got to be almost three stories tall. i couldn't even get a picture that fit the entire tower in it. this is the closest i could get, and you can't see the bottom layer. PLUS, the people who stand at the very top are little kids. seriously, like 6 year old kids climbing a tower of people. much more exciting than climbing a tree. and apparently the kids at the top have only been required to wear helmets starting this year. and they were the only people wearing them. i really can´t explain how amazed i was by this entire situation. it was so crazy.

afterwords, of course, ali and i decided to go and get some dessert like item, and it was a beautiful day.